Being on the frontlines of seeing babies grow and be saved is a high honor that I carry close to my heart. Watching their progress and sharing with others the work The Lord is doing through Hope of Life and the team at St Luke’s is one of my greatest joys. What we see is miraculous. But there is a darker side of my job that I don’t like to speak about very often…
Being on the frontlines also means you are the one there to hear a mother’s horrified crying as you carry her lifeless baby in a silk wrapped burial box. You are there to catch her as she almost collapses into the muddy hillside because grief and sadness have overcome her body… and she shakes as she sobs into your chest… and all the rain that falls cannot drown out the sight of your tears or the sound of her screams. Those moments are literally what nightmares are made of.
Today is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Day and also the International Day of Rural Women.
Could I just combine the two of these days to take a moment to spread awareness of the battle that the women of rural Guatemala face? The rate at which babies are dying in these mountains brings me to my knees.
In the past three days, we have lost three babies. One, I had prayed over for a night. One, I had prayed over for three weeks. And the other, I had prayed for over the past two years.
How deep it must hurt for you to read this post, know that it hurts even deeper for me to write it. To somehow try to formulate words for these traumatic moments, all the while knowing that their stories were beautiful even though the ending was ugly. And even deeper still is the hurt that I see in their mamás eyes and tear soaked faces. Maybe one day I will share their full stories, but today my heart hurts too much to write.
If nothing else— know that these babies didn’t die in vain. My friend Julia Homan said it best… “if this narrative softens the heart of even one towards those who look/talk/believe differently, then their short life will have served a great purpose.” Allow these stories to fuel you with a fire to have compassion for the women in Guatemala. Allow them to break your heart with the understanding that government corruption, violence, and a lack of support have left them without help and without hope… and babies are dying because of it. We cannot turn a blind eye to what is happening here in the Corredor Seco of Guatemala, these babies need our help. We pick up and push on to be harbingers of hope in this dry valley of hurt. And I share their painful stories so that their lives serve a great purpose.
One thing I know for certain, is God weeps when He sees what I’ve seen these past few days. And if you, too, have experienced loss and this day stirs up your emotions as well, He weeps with you too. He is close to the broken hearted. (Psalm 34:18)
Each of these three babies were deeply loved.
You are loved, too.
-Whitney
Erickson was 15 days old and weighed just above 3 pounds. Hope of Life set out for him the moment we heard of his case, but he passed away the next morning in a different hospital. His malnutrition was so severe it had already started shutting down his little body. Baby Rufino was 2 months and only 5 pounds. Along with malnutrition, he was suffering from pneumonia and his body was too weak to fight it despite several weeks of antibiotics and admission into the NICU at Chiquimula. And maybe the most difficult of all was the loss of our sweet Deisy. She gave me so much hope that things would be okay… but a long battle of chronic complications took her from us. She was loved by so many… even by my own mama. Allow each of these images to break your heart… so that these little lives will have served a great purpose.
Have you ever just felt you are watching your life from someone else’s viewpoint? That your mind is trapped in a space that is apart from your body as you watch yourself walk through the motions of every day life – wake up, coffee, work, home, eat, sleep, repeat. Rarely feeling fulfilled, simply existing instead of just living.
I used to feel this way on occasion before coming here to Guatemala. There were nights where I ached to be here– to feel the heat upon my skin, the dust on my lips, and the orphan in my arms. In retrospect, I can say that I perhaps squandered a lot of opportunities to serve and a lot of opportunities to love others during my season of waiting. I’ve come to realize that no matter what season of life we are in, especially seasons of waiting, that we are to persevere– to love God and love others with intention and purpose… even in the small things.
All this goes to say, although I’m more content and fulfilled in my work now than I’ve ever been, life here still has its difficulties. February was a hard month… we started out the month with some sick volunteers, then came a week with a respiratory virus, and we ended the month with a bout of rotavirus sweeping through the hospital and complicating our progress with the babies who came in already malnourished and dehydrated. At one point, I had worked 18 days straight (with the exception of one day of rest after a grueling 36 hour shift without sleep.) Don’t worry, Mom… I am not working myself to death, nor have I caught myself in the middle of some scheme where I am living on a ministry and they overwork me and call it “mission work.” 🙂 I am grateful that those hours and that intensity isn’t at all what Hope of Life asks or requires of me. I do this because I am finally SO passionate about what I do. I do this because last year we lost seven babies in a week due to rotavirus and respiratory viruses. I refuse to let that happen again. I will rest for several days once it is over… for now, I am running this race with endurance.
I was talking with one of my good friends who is Guatemalan and works for the ministry. He had mentioned how it must be amazing to be in the hospital and see the physical transformations and life change that happens every day among the children we bring in. That is SO true. Every day I go in to work is a new day to open my eyes to the literally miraculous things that God is doing here at Hope of Life. Every day, new milestones are achieved — a child’s diet advances, we can finally discontinue their IV because they are able to take in fluids, a feeding tube is removed and a patient has their first real meal in a month (or possibly for the first time ever), children with cleft palate repairs are finally gaining the courage to talk and sing at 3 1/2 years old, a baby takes their first steps at age 2… I pray that I never let fatigue or habit get in the way of what my eyes witness every day.
Although my joy and fulfillment in my career is greater now than it ever has been before, I have also experienced sadness and hurt in a valley that is darker and lower than anything I had ever known. When you spend an hour resuscitating a 4 pound baby and they are transferred to another hospital, you wake up in the middle of the night worried and hurting for them. When you lose a baby and you know you did everything in your power to help them, you feel futile and empty. I am thankful for the truth in Romans 8:26 that The Holy Spirit prays for us when we don’t even have the words or the capability to form our own thoughts in our moments of loss and disparity. I am thankful for my husband who knows when I need comforted and when I need space… and also when I need 2 gallons of black dark roasted Guatemalan coffee brought to the hospital at midnight. 🙂
I love what I do. Through the miracles I see, the hurt I sometimes feel, and the exhaustion that comes with all of it, I have come to so greatly appreciate the joy of living out my calling. I am so thankful for our supporters, friends, and family who encourage us and make this possible.
I feel like this post was a lot of different emotions tacked together and never really leading to a point… but my point is this– We have all been assigned to a mission, and we have all been given a purpose. For me, in this season, my mission is Guatemala. However, that is definitely not for everyone. Your mission may be to live your life in Huntington, West Virginia and to show love to your neighbor by serving in your community, supporting local nonprofits, and getting plugged into the local church. Your mission may be to live in Fredericksburg, VA and pray for missionaries and organize short term trips to help support the long term partners across the world. Wherever you are planted, we are called to love others. We are called to “run our race with endurance” and to show others the love of Jesus regardless of how tired or ill-equipped we feel. We don’t do it because we seek some ‘eternal reward’.. we do it because we have seen, felt, and experienced the transformative and renewing grace of God and want to share with others what we have already been filled with.
John Piper said it best, “If we don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because we have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Our soul is stuffed with the small things, and there is no room for the great.”
I want my soul to be filled with ‘the great.’ Don’t you?
You are loved,
Whitney
Sweet 2 month old Dominga was brought in weighing under 4 pounds. Can’t wait to get a picture to show you all how much she’s already grown. <3
Precious Deili was sick with both a respiratory virus and rotavirus. Thankful Bryan came to serve an overnight shift so that I was able to rest. <3
Deili isn’t completely out of the woods, but she is feeling MUCH better!
Erik was brought in for malnutrition as his mama, who was also malnourished, was unable to produce breastmilk.
After a few short days, Erik was more alert and gaining weight.
Gloria’s father contacted us for help after finding out his daughter was being abused by her stepfather. She was afraid of being touched, but is now safe and reunited with her biological father.
Gloria’s precious cousins who received assessments as well as food bags donated by Hope of Life.
A group donated this Bible, and Valentin was so happy to receive it and read it to the other young boys in his room.
